ByLane HartillApril 8, 1999

Spunky, blue-eyed hayley mills was the darling of 1960s family movies. The British lass starred in the cheery "Pollyanna" in 1960, for which she won an honorary Oscar. Ms. Mills went on to work in several other Walt Disney films, including 1961's "The Parent Trap" (in which she played twins), "In Search of the Castaways" (1962), and "The Trouble with Angels" (1966). She made more than 20 movies over the next 30 years, and even had a Top-10 hit song on the charts in 1961: "Let's Get Together" (from "The Parent Trap") was briefly No. 1 in Hawaii.

"The fame of my early youth was always a much bigger thing in America than it was in England," Mills told an interviewer in 1997. "I was always strangely cut off from it. I'd make a film in Hollywood. Then I'd return to London and go back to school."

But Mills outgrew child roles. After a bout with an eating disorder and two failed marriages, she started a successful theater career in London. She has more than 20 theater credits to her name, including a six-month tour of the US in "The King and I" in 1997. She has two sons, one of whom is the leader of the British rock group Kula Shaker.